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Book Reviewed by:
Norah Piehl
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"A complete knockout. Readers will be thinking of this story long after they finish the final page." —Adalyn Grace, New York Times bestselling author of Belladonna
Atlas has lost her way.
In a last-ditch effort to pull her life together, she's working on a community service program rehabbing trails in the Western Sierras. The only plus is that the days are so exhausting that Atlas might just be tired enough to forget that this was one of her dad's favorite places in the world. Before cancer stole him from her life, that is.
Using real names is forbidden on the trail. So Atlas becomes Maps, and with her team—Books, Sugar, Junior, and King—she heads into the wilderness. As she sheds the lies she's built up as walls to protect herself, she realizes that four strangers might know her better than anyone has before. And with the end of the trail racing to meet them, Maps is left counting down the days until she returns to her old life—without her new family, and without King, who's become more than just a friend.
The End
HE STANDS ON THE STREET.
The sunshine gone from his skin, and hair a little longer than before. It curls into the collar of the dark flannel shirt he's wearing. I can count all the ways he's different under the light from the lamppost instead of the light from a summer moon.
But the look in his eyes. That's the same.
It hurts to meet them, like pieces of jagged glass pressing against my heart, so I focus on his hands. He's holding the journal. Worn leather that's pockmarked from water and pages softened by touch. I want to reach out and open it because I know on those pages are words I want to read again.
And words I don't.
"You still have it." I'd hoped my voice would sound surprised, but all I can hear is the sadness in it.
"Yeah." He says it simply because of course he still has it. And I can feel my heart bend and break in that one word. Like the spine of a new book.
"Why?" I ask, but really I hope.
For what exactly, I'm not sure.
Gentle fingers run over the word etched on the ...
In her second novel for young adults, Kristin Dwyer crafts a moving character study, a portrait of a young woman in search not only of healing, but also of a way back to herself. Maps's journey through grief is almost painfully authentic, both in how she's determined not to let her pain define her and how that pain breaks the surface at the most surprising and inconvenient times. In this story, as in real life, grief and anger become intertwined—making her way through that thicket is every bit as challenging as hacking through the thick and tangled debris that blocks the trail: "It's not just the sad, or the broken, it's all the moments where I don't get to control the way I miss someone."..continued
Full Review
(650 words)
(Reviewed by Norah Piehl).
#1 New York Times bestselling author of Once Upon A Broken Heart, Stephanie Garber
Part summer daydream, part secret whisper, The Atlas of Us is beautiful and aching and deeply romantic. A love story for anyone who has ever told a lie, made a mistake, or dared to hope for something just out of reach. Adrienne Young, New York Times and International bestselling author.
Kristin Dwyer's emotional, one-of-a-kind storytelling shines in this poignant book about grief, found family, and heart aching romance. The Atlas of Us pulls at the heart strings in a way that only Dwyer can do. Axie Oh, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea and XOXO
I've never read a book that felt so much like picking up pieces of a broken heart —powerful, poignant, and true. Rachel Griffin, New York Times bestselling author of Bring Me Your Midnight
A raw, unflinching examination of grief and the way it changes us. Wrapped in Dwyer's signature wit and gorgeous prose, The Atlas of Us takes readers on a journey of found family and intense love, set against the beauty and stillness of nature. Utterly compelling and impossible to put down, Dwyer's sophomore novel is stunning from beginning to end.
In Kristin Dwyer's The Atlas of Us, Atlas and her friends are given trail names by their program director; these nicknames allow Atlas (trail name Maps) to create a new identity and forge a new beginning, one unencumbered by her personal history. Names in Dwyer's novel serve a symbolic purpose, but there's a very real phenomenon of trail names among long-distance hikers.
Trail names haven't always been part of hiking culture; the tradition seems to have possibly begun in the 1970s, around the time when through-hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT) became a popular pastime. Trail names allowed hikers, especially along the AT, to adopt a new persona, one that could be anonymous, egalitarian, and fun. As one hiker puts it, "Trail names ...
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